White Miso Ramen - Kura (久楽) Plaza Singapura

This weeks' ramen adventure brings me to Kura (久楽) at Plaza Singapura.

Japan Food Holdings, the company behind the ubiquitous Ajisen Ramen and other Japanese restaurants, opened a multi-brand Japanese food concept call "Tokyo Walker" in Plaza Singapura in November.

Sounds like the name of my blog? Yes it does!

They, just like me, were "inspired" by the series of popular magazine " Walker" in Japan that reports about cool happenings in the cities in Japan.

Interesting that the restaurants inside are not totally Tokyo ... Champon is a dish from Nagasaki, a Udon restaurant is from Osaka...

... and Kura is a Hokkaido ramen franchise!

Kura serves miso ramen in 3 types of misoes - red, white and spicy.

Interestingly, while Kura comes from Hokkaido in the north of Japan, its founder, Okuhara Souji, came from Okinawa that is all the way in the south.

He went to Hokkaido and started trial and error of creating his ideal bowl of ramen.

That explains why Kura doesn't call themselves Hokkaido-style ramen, but rather Okuhara-style (奥原流) ramen.

I've also wrote an email to Kura in Japan, asking them if there are anything in particular that they have customised their offering for the Singapore outlet.

Glad to hear that they have chosen to offer exactly what they are offering in Japan to deliver us the authentic taste.

I ordered the white miso ramen ($12.8) this time.

The ramen has a variety of toppings - char siew, tamago, chopped leek and onion, tenkasu (天かす), minced meat, seaweed and a dash of spicy miso paste. This gives the ramen a range of taste and texture when you eat it together with the yellow curly noodles. The white miso soup base, with a mix of pork and chicken stock, tasted good but might be slightly salty for me.

What it could have done better is how they serve it. When the ramen is delivered to me, the seaweed was already soft and sinking. Similar to other concepts that are brought in by franchise, the presentation is far from what the photo shows... making it looks less delicious as it should.

Overall, it is a good bowl of ramen, much better compared to its neighbour. But among the many other ramen stall in Singapore, it might not be the among the top in my list.

View Ramen Walker's Ramen Map in a larger map

Ramen Data - Kura @ Plaza Singapura
Address: #04-01 Plaza Singapura
Types: Miso
Price: S$12.8
Rating: 6.5/10

Sanomaru Ramen (さのまる) @ TripleOne Somerset

This week's ramen adventure brings me Sanomaru Ramen (さのまる) at TripleOne Somerset, aka the old Singapore Power building.

111, 313, pretty confusing!

Brown and traditional feel

Store interior, with many posters of Hokkaido

A new entrant in Singapore's ramen scene, Sanomaru is another ramen shop from Hokkaido, Japan. Sanomaru has 1 outlet in Sapporo's Susukino district, the red-light district of Northern Japan. This is only their 2nd outlet, and the first one outside Japan. A Japanese ramen chef runs the shop to ensure that its up to the standard back home.

It is brought in by a Hokkaido-based company Nisso Ltd (that interestingly is a medical & welfare food service company) and Singapore's Komars Holdings (that operates other Japanese F&B concepts such as Bishamon ramen). Their opening in Singapore made news in the newspaper in Hokkaido too!

Sanomaru serves miso, shio and shoyu ramen.

Because Sapporo is famous for its miso Ramen, I decided to try Sanomaru's Vegetable Miso Ramen ($12.9).



The ramen is topped with long cabbage, bean sprout and corn. The soup base is a mixed soup, prepared from pork bones, chicken bones, vegetable and seafood. The soup of the miso ramen was light, very different from what Miharu serves, but yet it was sweet and flavoursome. I guess it is because how Sanomaru blended their soup.

I had the priviledge to speak to Mr Tsutsumi from Nisso, who is in charge of Sanomaru's Singapore expansion. He shared that while some other ramen shops in Singapore flies in frozen ramen to Singapore and defrost it before use, Sanomaru orders its ramen locally to its specification to make sure that the ramen is fresh. The saltiness and thickness of the soup are also adjusted down from the original recipe in Hokkaido to cater to Singaporean's preference. The company is still trying to improvise the ramen to suit our taste buds. Very interesting!

After eating the ramen, I did some research on the internet about Sanomaru. Interestingly, what seems to be its specialty is its Shio ramen!! On their menu in Japan there is also a delicious-looking Shio ramen with plum paste, which is not on its menu in Singapore. I could imagine how the clear soup will blend with the refreshing sourness of the plum.

Let me go back to Sanomaru again and try its Shio ramen someday.

And hopefully they will introduce the one with plum paste in Singapore too! It will be something different from what the other stores are offering.


View Ramen Walker's Ramen Map in a larger map

Ramen Data - Sanomaru Ramen @ TripleOne Somerset
Address: TripleOne Somerset, 111 Somerset Road, #02-15
Types: Miso, Shio, Shoyu
Price: S$12.9-15.9
Rating: 7.5/10